The house construction has been slow the last couple weeks. The soil treatment was done which is the step where they treat the foundation for termites and wood boring insects. Next week several areas of the foundation with be core filled with concrete. That will effectively join them together with the rebar into one cohesive piece. You might notice some tall rebar sticking out of the blocks in the photos. It kind of looks like we’re preparing for the zombie apocalypse! Our front porch will be concrete but will have a area underneath it for storage. In order to do this a metal floor will be laid down then the rebar bent over it. The rebar will then be tied into the concrete floor that gets poured later on the front porch. The rebar is spaced at 16 inch intervals which meets the FEMA requirements for a tornado shelter (f4 I think).
You can see the rebar standing tall prior to bending. At this stage it looks like a fortress designed to prevent a zombie invasion!
It wasn’t our intent to set up this way but due to the slope on the lot and the amount of gravel that would be required to fill the cavity this is probably a better approach. We’ll definitely be able to use the storage capacity it adds for lawn and garden stuff. I think I will probably add lights and shelving to start my vegetable garden starts in the future!
The rectangular area in the picture below is where a covered porch will be. It will be filled with gravel and concrete will be added later. The photo was taken from where the fire place is in the keeping room.
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